Iranian hackers broke into to a system used by a U.S. municipal government to publish election results in 2020 but were discovered by cyber soldiers operating abroad and kicked out before an attack could be launched, according to U.S. military and cybersecurity officials
The system involved in the previously undisclosed breach was not for casting or counting ballots, but rather was used to report unofficial election results on a public website. The breach was revealed during a presentation this week at the RSA Conference in San Francisco, which is focused on cybersecurity. Officials did not identify the local government that was targeted.
“Our concern is always that some type of website defacement, some type of attack, something that took the website down or defaced the website say on the night of the election, could make it look like the vote had been tampered with when that’s absolutely not true,” Major Gen. William J. Hartman, commander of U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force, told conference attendees Monday.
Hartman said his team then acted “to ensure the malicious cyber actor no longer had access to the network and was unable to come back into the network in direct support of the elections.”Its successful thwarting highlights the stealthy, largely classified, efforts of U.S. military cyberwarriors to prevent a repeat of 2016, when atargeting Hillary Clinton's campaign favored former President Donald Trump's election.
“We said if you are going to come and try to influence or interfere in our elections, we’re going to take you on, and we did,” he said.
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